Surgeries Delayed At VA Hospital After Weekend Fire

BRENTWOOD (CBSLA.com) — An electrical outage at the Veterans Administration medical facility in West Los Angeles has left two buildings running on emergency power and forced some surgeries to be delayed.

VA spokesperson Wileen Hernandez told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO a fire that broke out shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Sunday is responsible for the outages.

“It caused a power outage in parts of the campus, and by that I mean Building 501 and Building 500, which is our main medical building,” said Hernandez.

Southern California Edison services the area in which the 500-bed hospital and adjacent nursing home is located.

Repairs to the electrical building are expected to take five to seven days, but Hernandez said emergency medical services are still available.

“The only restrictions are on the emergency department, but all routine appointments will take place as scheduled,” she said.

The facility is currently running on a back-up generator temporarily until it can switch over to Edison’s generators.

No injuries or evacuations were reported and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.